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reneereads's review
dark
reflective
sad
fast-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Incest, and Sexual assault
jennyshank's review
4.0
from https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/5-of-the-best-new-memoirs-of-spring/
Grace Talusan immigrated to America with her family from the Philippines when she was a preschooler. In this moving, clear-eyed memoir, which won the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, she probes the events of her life, documenting them with photographs and official papers. She involves the reader in her quest to make sense of who she has become by charting where she’s been. “Immigration is a kind of death,” she writes. “You leave one life for another one with no guarantee of seeing your loved ones or home again.” The portrait Talusan creates of her father, Totoy, is one of the most complex and beautiful parts of the book. Totoy grew up in a compound with his family in Manila. To punish him when he was ten, his mother hung him. Totoy thought he would die, but he survived, immigrated to America (after having all his rotting teeth pulled), and became an ophthalmologist. When Grace was young, Totoy and her mother practiced stricter Filipino-style parenting but grew toward an American permissiveness and warmth. After Totoy learns that his visiting father had been sexually abusing Grace from age seven to thirteen, he becomes her fierce protector, disowning his entire extended family to defend his daughter, and doing everything he can to help her heal. But Talusan is still working on healing. It’s clear that telling her story with such openness and perceptiveness, is part of that ongoing process. “Reaching out to other people and connecting,” she writes, “which is the exact opposite of how I felt when I was being abused, is why and how I am alive.”
Grace Talusan immigrated to America with her family from the Philippines when she was a preschooler. In this moving, clear-eyed memoir, which won the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, she probes the events of her life, documenting them with photographs and official papers. She involves the reader in her quest to make sense of who she has become by charting where she’s been. “Immigration is a kind of death,” she writes. “You leave one life for another one with no guarantee of seeing your loved ones or home again.” The portrait Talusan creates of her father, Totoy, is one of the most complex and beautiful parts of the book. Totoy grew up in a compound with his family in Manila. To punish him when he was ten, his mother hung him. Totoy thought he would die, but he survived, immigrated to America (after having all his rotting teeth pulled), and became an ophthalmologist. When Grace was young, Totoy and her mother practiced stricter Filipino-style parenting but grew toward an American permissiveness and warmth. After Totoy learns that his visiting father had been sexually abusing Grace from age seven to thirteen, he becomes her fierce protector, disowning his entire extended family to defend his daughter, and doing everything he can to help her heal. But Talusan is still working on healing. It’s clear that telling her story with such openness and perceptiveness, is part of that ongoing process. “Reaching out to other people and connecting,” she writes, “which is the exact opposite of how I felt when I was being abused, is why and how I am alive.”
leaton01's review
4.0
Talusan's memoir interweaves the various threads of her life into a tapestry that is magisterial to see in its fullness and both powerful and painful to watch in its development. She shares with readers the many challenges, emotions, and scars she has experienced through her life negotiating her racial, ethnic, social, and gender identities. From leaving her home in the Philipines to growing up in a white suburban Boston enclave to surviving sexual abuse from a family member to grappling with the forboding odds of various cancers to navigating familial and spousal relationships through all these issues, Talusan tackles everything with a directness, balanced by sincerity and insight garnered by much reflection. There are so many things to appreciate about her writing from the elegant but accessible prose to the ways in which each chapter unravels with just the right amount of pacing and absent of overt explanations of the lessons being communicated. For me, I loved the synergy between the title "The Body Papers" and how each chapter taps into that term in some interesting way. Talusan ties that theme together when she discusses her transition from resident to citizen and how papers determine what kind of body she is (i.e. a legal or illegal one). She revisits waiting for the (paper) results to genes testing to determine how big of a threat various cancers will be in her life. She shares recipes have guided her in creating foods that she finds solace in as they both remind her of memories and also, spark her creative side. Throughout it all, Talusan's focus is on her body and her experiences, navigating what it has meant for her to survive and thrive; in this way, it is an empowering reflection how the strength that many of us often don't realize we have until we are truly tested.
marieandthebooks's review
1.0
I started reading this with so much anticipation because I love everything Filipino that makes me feel closer to home. I was grossly disappointed here.
I can tell fast that being away from the Philippines has stripped her from all familiarity and she comes across as whiny, judge mental and a bit racist towards her own.
My first real trigger was her describing old white undesirable men with young Filipina woman faking their love for cash. Here is my rant on that subject:
As a child of a Filipina woman and European man it saddens me that this sterotype seems to be etched in stone. It’s not always like that and constantly using it as a visual is disgusting and detrimental to all the relationships that is nothing like that.
I’ve seen so many beautiful crosscultural relationships and this diminishes them to cradle robber/gold digger status.
Shame on this author. In a different way you sought the same life moving to the states to escape poverty.
To look down your nose on others wishing the same is disgusting.
Also not ALL who marry white are down on their luck!
When she later states upon landing in Manila that she says to her husband “there’s so many Filipinos here, too many to count” I lost it.
I cannot keep reading this book, it’s giving me high blood pressure!
I can tell fast that being away from the Philippines has stripped her from all familiarity and she comes across as whiny, judge mental and a bit racist towards her own.
My first real trigger was her describing old white undesirable men with young Filipina woman faking their love for cash. Here is my rant on that subject:
As a child of a Filipina woman and European man it saddens me that this sterotype seems to be etched in stone. It’s not always like that and constantly using it as a visual is disgusting and detrimental to all the relationships that is nothing like that.
I’ve seen so many beautiful crosscultural relationships and this diminishes them to cradle robber/gold digger status.
Shame on this author. In a different way you sought the same life moving to the states to escape poverty.
To look down your nose on others wishing the same is disgusting.
Also not ALL who marry white are down on their luck!
When she later states upon landing in Manila that she says to her husband “there’s so many Filipinos here, too many to count” I lost it.
I cannot keep reading this book, it’s giving me high blood pressure!
imalwayswrite's review
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
This is a memoir written by Grace Talusan, a Filipino American. This was no easy read because of the childhood sexual assault situation. Additionally, though she was born in the Philippines, she grew up in the States, just like I did. Her upbringing parallels my own. Neither of our families was affectionate or said, “I love you.” The drive to achieve was fostered in our young minds. As an adult, other things happen to Talusan that she has to deal with. Highly recommend, especially if you are or were born to immigrants.
girloleander's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
i cried multiple times while reading. grace handles heavy topics in this memoir in a very delicate way.
briface's review
4.0
Beautiful memoir about life as a Filipino immigrant, depression, sexual abuse from a family member and cancer.